Tag Archives: editing

The importance of page turns in picture books

Picture books may have some of the shortest word counts of any books, but that doesn’t make editing them straightforward. Lisa Davis explains what editors and authors need to consider when using the format of the book itself to build the story.

When initially editing a manuscript without illustrations, it’s important to consider what the illustrations can bring to the narrative. Some manuscripts might come with illustration suggestions embedded in the text to help get an idea of what the author envisions. The author may also have broken down the manuscript into page splits, but if the editor or the author is not familiar with the picture book format or editing picture books, it can be easy to overlook the importance of page turns.

Using the picture book format

The standard picture book on the market these days is 32 pages. This includes all front and end matter, which often takes up a minimum of three pages for title page and copyright information. The text itself is usually around 500 words – it’s a lot of story to pack into a small amount of space, and that’s why the format of a picture book matters so much.

Whatever the production stage, but particularly when developmental editing a picture book, an editor needs to think about the book in spreads – the two pages that face each other compose one spread. This is essential when commissioning artwork since the illustrator will need to know if they are illustrating a single page or an entire spread. Picture books can have a mixture of artwork sizes throughout, so they could take up an entire spread, a single page or even just part of a page that features several illustrations. These all aid with the pacing of the story. But, along with the pictures, we can also use the format of the book to help pace and build tension in the story.

With each turn of a page, you can completely change the scene or tone. It’s almost like a lift-the-flap book where you reveal something to the reader. Imagine the story being read aloud to a child and pausing before turning the page to ask, ‘What do you think is going to happen now?’ Or the way a scene may be cut in a film or TV programme where something is shown that contradicts what was just said for humorous effect. Or even panels in a graphic novel where you build up to something big that needs a whole page of its own.

How to use page turns

While most picture books today will use page turns to some extent, certain titles rely on this element for comedy, surprise or dramatic effect. One great example is the classic Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins, which uses the page turns throughout the whole story for comedic effect. While Rosie the hen goes on a walk around the farmyard, a fox follows behind her planning to attack, only for the page to turn and the fox has a mishap that results in Rosie (unknowingly) escaping.

Unless the story fully relies on page turns, as in Rosie’s Walk, it’s more common to use these page turns for scene changes sparingly for greatest effect, usually around the climax of the story. For instance, the book I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen uses a page turn as Bear makes a realisation that yes, he has seen the hat he’s been looking for. The previous page leads to this with a ‘Wait a minute …’ moment, letting the reader know something big is going to happen once they turn the page. And then – page-flip – we zoom in on Bear’s face as his mood changes from sadness to rage, illustration turned from subtle tones to awash with red. The rest of the story hinges on this moment, which is why it’s vital to use every element a book offers (text, artwork and format) to build up to it.

Another popular page-turn technique in picture books is using the very last page of the book (which will be a single page that faces the inside of the cover) to add an illustration vignette to suggest what might happen after the story has ended. For instance, maybe you think a character has learned a lesson, but then the illustration suggests the same situation is about to happen all over again.

A great example of this final-page usage is Nine Lives Newton by Alice McKinley. At the beginning of the book, Newton the dog mistakenly reads an obscured sign and now believes that dogs have nine lives, setting him off to do all the things he had previously avoided doing – with a poor cat following behind trying to warn him (while using up its own nine lives in the process). By the end of the book, Newton learns about his error, and our cat friend thinks all is well again. But on that final page, a vignette shows Newton looking at another obscured sign leading to yet another misunderstanding, suggesting to the reader that the chaos is about to start all over again! It’s a great way to end the story with an unexpected laugh.

Adding page turns to a manuscript

It might be easy to see the strength of a clever page turn when you’re looking at published books, but how do you know where to put the page cuts in a manuscript that you’re working on? This can be done by looking for those moments in the text with a sudden scene change. Think of them as ‘3… 2 … 1 …’ moments, or points where someone reading aloud will add a lot more drama. For instance, consider where you might want page turns with the following sentences:

The little owl stepped up to the edge of the branch, puffed up its chest, stretched out its wings and leapt into the air. What a glorious feeling! it thought, just before it started to fall down … down … down … and then … CRASH! landed right in the middle of a bluebird nest.

Bear in mind that picture book pacing also means considering how many words are on each page. Effective page turns can mean that a page with a big reveal or sudden dramatic moment might have just a few words – or even no words at all. While there are many ways to split up a moment like this, an option could be:

(Spread 1 – left page)

The little owl stepped up to the edge of the branch, puffed up its chest, stretched out its wings and leapt into the air.

[illustration: full page of baby owl preparing to fly]

(Spread 1 – right page)

What a glorious feeling! it thought, just before it started to fall down … down … down … and then …

[illustration: page of vignettes showing owl at various stages: 1) happily flying, 2) realising it’s falling, 3) falling more, 4) properly tumbling down]

(Spread 2 – full spread)

CRASH! landed right in the middle of a bluebird nest.

[illustration: full spread of a dishevelled owl sitting unhappily among some perplexed bluebird chicks]

This is an exaggerated way to write this out in a manuscript and is rarely necessary, but it is sometimes helpful if a self-publishing author needs to commission the illustrations according to the page splits (because it will influence what the illustrator is commissioned to draw and how many illustrations are required). When working with authors who plan to submit the book to agents or publishers, then it’s better not to be as prescriptive with page numbers or illustrations, and to simply leave line breaks within the text to give an indication of pacing.

So if you’re getting into picture book editing, remember that there’s more to it than just the text and illustrations – there’s also the whole format of the book that you can play around with. That’s what makes editing picture books both challenging and exceptionally fun!

About Lisa Davis

Lisa Davis (she/her) is a children’s book editor and publishing consultant who specialises in making children’s books more inclusive. She has worked at major publishers in the UK including Simon & Schuster and Hachette, and in departments including editorial, rights and production. Before going freelance in 2018, she was the book purchasing manager for BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity, which gives over 3.5 million books a year directly to children.

About the CIEP

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) is a non-profit body promoting excellence in English language editing. We set and demonstrate editorial standards, and we are a community, training hub and support network for editorial professionals – the people who work to make text accurate, clear and fit for purpose.
Find out more about:

Photo credits: child reading by Marta Wave on Pexels; Rosie’s Walk and Nine Lives Newton, Simon and Schuster.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

How editors can help self-publishing children’s book authors

Leave a Reply

It’s easier than ever for first-time authors to self-publish children’s books but the process can still be confusing. Annie Deakins demystifies her role as an editor, explains how she can support authors in other ways and offers some tips to both prospective writers and editors.

The email begins, ‘Hello, I found your website and see that you proofread children’s books. I have written my first children’s book. Can you help me to publish? I need the grammar, etc, to be perfect. How much do you charge?’

I need more information.

Using my education background

I proofread children’s books using my knowledge from 30 years of teaching in the primary classroom. I know what makes a good children’s story, whether it’s a picture book, chapter book or another format.

When I taught children to read, I showed them how to understand and value stories with words chosen for effect. When I taught writing, I guided them to improve their writing using modelling – dissecting how the stories were written.

Supporting indie authors

When I retrained as a freelance proofreader and started my business, I had no idea about the area of self-publishing. But the process has grown in a way that makes getting their books out to readers attainable for new independent (indie) authors. And my knowledge has grown with them.

As it can be easier to self-publish than to go down the traditional route, it seemed logical to offer my services to indies. Half of the weekly enquiries I receive through my website are from new children’s book authors asking for help.

So, back to that email. What is my response?

The author hasn’t indicated the genre or word count, or attached their manuscript, so I request the current file of their book and ask some questions. I can’t provide a quote unless I’ve seen the material.
The author replies with their book file. As they have asked for a proofread, I’d hoped to see the finalised, illustrated manuscript as a PDF. However, when I open the file, it is a Word document with no illustrations.
When I read the manuscript, I am excited by the writing. I feel I would be a good fit for the author, so I explain my packages.

By this point I realise that this author, like many new indies, doesn’t understand the process involved in publishing. They have asked for proofreading but they realise they need more than that. They need an editor; they need advice. As a first step, I refer them to the resources on the website of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), where there are written guides and author forums. I am a Partner Member of ALLi, offering an editorial service.

Finding the right package

I offer three packages:

My basic proofread is checking for typos and errors of grammar and consistency. In traditional publishing, this would take place at the end of the publishing process when the manuscript has been copyedited, illustrated and typeset.
My proof-edit is a proofread plus tweaking the text with edits or suggestions for improvement. I guide the author on the use of appropriate language for the age of the child. For example, is the book aimed at 4–7-year-olds, 8–11-year-olds or another age group? Is the topic suitable? Is the vocabulary appropriate?
My advanced package includes the tasks outlined in point 2 but I add my consultancy service. I give indies advice on how to get their manuscript ready for self-publication. It includes a proof-edit in Microsoft Word, and a second proofread of the final proof of the book as a PDF just before it is published. By this time, a book designer has formatted and designed it to fit in the illustrations. It has a separate book-cover file which includes the front, back and spine.

To help this latest author to find the right package for their needs, I offer to do a sample proof-edit to show how their manuscript can be improved. I take different parts of their manuscript and demonstrate: a) a proofread and b) a proof-edit. As always, the author sees the value I add with my edits and chooses my consultancy rate. Then I invoice them for the deposit (usually 50%) so that their slot can be booked in my schedule.

Helping to find an illustrator

As the picture-book story lacks illustrations, I ask the author if they have an illustrator in mind. They say they want the story checked first to make sure it is ‘okay’ and ask if I can recommend an illustrator.

It’s a good idea for an author to have researched the kind of illustrator they want to use by, for example, looking at book covers of children’s books in the same genre and/or looking at the portfolios of illustrators to find one who uses the style they prefer. I recommend they look in the Directory of Partner Members in ALLi to find an illustrator.

Building the book

I’ve often been asked if I put the book together by combining the illustrations with the story. No, I don’t offer design, layout or typesetting as a service, yet. The skills of a book designer are in demand with the increase in self-publishing.

Book production involves a variety of specialists. We all respect each other as trusted colleagues. On LinkedIn, I’ve found several skilled typesetters who work with indie authors who I recommend to my clients. I also direct them to the ALLi Directory of Partner Members.

Offering sympathetic support

I am usually the only editing professional who sees the manuscript. When I am asked a question about self-publishing to which I don’t know the answer, it’s not a problem. I say I’ll find out. Answers can be found in the CIEP guide How to Work with Self-Publishers, or in the CIEP forums, or … on the ALLi website. Can you see a pattern emerging?

Considering the author’s marketing strategy

Lastly, when I return the proof-edited manuscript to the indie author, I ask if they have thought how they are going to advertise and market their children’s book. The answer, as always, is no; they are so pleased they have got this far. This is the end, isn’t it? Can I help?

I explain that if an indie author sells their children’s book on their website and social media channels, they will reach more readers, parents, teachers and other authors. As with any marketing strategy, it is best to start with the product at the end and work backwards.

Resources for editors

Could you offer an editing consultancy to indie authors?

Reflect on your skills, and recognise that you have knowledge that is in demand, and that you can offer trust and value. You are a safe pair of hands for a client who does not know the self-publishing area. Your skills are an asset that prospective clients are willing to pay for.

Here are some resources you may find useful:

The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) is a global membership association for self-publishing authors. Its mission is ethics and excellence in self-publishing, and it offers advice and advocacy for self-publishing authors within the literary, publishing and creative industries around the world. ALLi Partner Members get an affiliate link in their logo that can be put on an email signature, website, etc.
The ‘Pen to Published’ podcast is presented by independent publisher Alexa Whitten and CIEP member Alexa Tewkesbury. They give advice about writing and publishing children’s books, for want-to-be authors, those who are self-publishing, and anyone who just likes to write.
An education resource is the ELT Publishing Professionals Directory, which brings together publishers and freelancers in the English-language-teaching and educational publishing sectors.

About Annie Deakins

Annie Deakins started her freelance proofreading and tutoring business in 2017 after teaching in Essex (via Paisley) for 30 years. She trained with the CIEP and is an Intermediate Member. She proofreads non-fiction for publishers and indies. Her specialisms are education, ELT, children’s books and religion. She is a Partner Member of ALLi and a member of the ELT Publishing Professionals Directory. Find her on LinkedIn.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credits: header image by Pierre Bamin, girl reading by Jonathan Borba, both on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Providing editorial services to non-profits and businesses

1 Reply

In this post, Hazel Bird looks at some of the ways in which proofreading and editing for businesses and non-profits differs from working with ‘traditional’ publishers and independent authors.

Ultimately, providing editorial services to a non-profit or business works the same way as providing editorial services to a publisher or independent author: you talk to them about what they want, check that matches what you can deliver and then carry out the work to the brief. But, in reality, working with non-profits and businesses can feel quite different from working with publishers and authors, in terms of both how you do the work and how you interact with your contact.

These tips are based on my experience working primarily with UK and European non-profits operating around the world.

Getting and scheduling the work

The stereotype is that businesses and non-profits will make you jump through endless hoops before they’ll give you any work and then will want their project done yesterday. In my experience, they have a range of onboarding and scheduling practices, just like publishers (who themselves are not immune from ‘hoopery’ and asking for demanding schedules).

But it is certainly true that the larger businesses and non-profits are more likely to require you to go through a procurement or tendering process, where you might submit a bid for a contract and perhaps have an interview. It’s important to find out how your target clients contract work so you can make yourself visible to them – otherwise, if you wait to be contacted by your dream client, you may be waiting a while!

Another key difference is that businesses and non-profits are less likely than publishers and authors to even know that they might benefit from editorial services. As such, some will approach you directly (for example, through the CIEP Directory if you have an entry) but in other cases there is scope for using your contacts and marketing (for example, via social media) to reach clients who might not otherwise come to you naturally.

Understanding your role

I wrote a bit about this topic in an earlier post on moving into a new editorial field. In summary: while businesses and non-profits may have clear ideas of what they want to achieve via editorial work, they may have less of an idea how to achieve this. You may therefore find that your role involves a degree of educational work.

But, at the same time, it’s important not to make assumptions. Some smaller communications teams may be working with an editor for the first time, whereas some global organisations have editorial policies and processes to equal those of any publisher (and vice versa). Ask questions to understand how you will fit in.

Part of asking questions, too, means understanding the nature of the changes you are expected to make. As any editor who has worked outside the traditional publishing workflow knows, ‘proofreading’ for a business or non-profit may be more like traditional copyediting (or even developmental editing!). Conversely, though, when a business or non-profit commissions you to ‘proofread’ their text, they may have an especially restrictive definition of the work – for example, to avoid the document having to go back to a sponsoring body or key stakeholders for a further round of approval.

It’s therefore vital to ask questions to ensure you are comfortable with the level of work required and to avoid doing undesired work.

Matters of style

Businesses and non-profits are increasingly likely to have an in-house style guide of some nature. You might also encounter:

glossaries, which tell you exactly how certain words are allowed to be used
lists of proscribed words or phrases, hopefully with suggested replacements
‘tone tools’, which go into detail about the tone of voice and mode of address that the organisation uses in its communications.

We editors often talk about picking up an author’s tone of voice, but with businesses and non-profits this is more likely to be about picking up the brand’s voice (remember that a brand is not just a commercial thing – most non-profits will consider themselves to have a brand too). Whereas publishers will often be happy for authors to write however they like as long as they stay within the bounds of respectful discourse, businesses and non-profits are more likely to have quite stringent ideas about how their text should ‘feel’.

The good news, though, is that once you’ve absorbed this ‘feel’, it’s a relatively straightforward matter of applying it across all the work you do for the organisation (as opposed to picking up a new voice for each publisher’s author you work with).

Communications and queries

Some businesses and non-profits will follow the traditional three-step pattern where you send them the edited document with queries, the ‘author’ (or a nominated member of the communications team) answers the queries and sends the document back to you, and then you absorb the replies and return a squeaky-clean version ready to be sent to the client’s design team. But, in my experience, it is more likely that businesses and non-profits will request a single-stage service where they simply receive the edited document with your queries and then action them as they see fit, without your input.

If this will be the case, it’s helpful to make your queries extra clear and always offer solutions, to make the client’s tidy-up work as easy as possible. Remember, they may have very little editorial experience and so be unaware of options or approaches you find obvious.

Be prepared, too, for the possibility that your ‘proofread’ may actually be followed by huge revisions – for example, if a non-profit’s policy paper is on a tight schedule and the client decides to get proofreading done while they await revisions from a key stakeholder. If you’re aware in advance of what the revisions might be, you can take account of them in your editing and provide suggestions along the lines of ‘if X changes in Y manner, you might also want to consider changing Z’. But often this is just a case of accepting that your meticulous proofread might not be the end of the road for the document and leaving the door open for the client to request further support later on if they need it.

Completing the work

Some businesses and non-profits have very specific invoicing requirements – for example, to comply with a funder’s auditing schedule – so try to learn any restrictions on timing or formatting requirements (such as level of detail required in the breakdown of tasks) in advance. Some will require you to register on a payment portal or similar. As with working for publishers, it’s a good idea to get hold of the name of a person in the finance department so you can chase overdue invoices directly, if needed.

When it comes to post-project assessment of your work, in my experience this is an area that differs hugely from working with publishers. In a publisher–editor relationship, it’s usually the publisher that is considered the expert (rightly or wrongly!). In contrast, in relationships between editors and businesses or non-profits, it’s more likely that the client will consider you the expert and simply go with whatever you have suggested (unless it is obviously wrong or contrary to the brief). This puts more of a weight of responsibility on your shoulders, so it’s important to feel you have the confidence to make decisions without an editorially trained project manager waiting in the wings to check your work. But if you do have the confidence and appropriate experience, it can be an immensely satisfying way of collaborating with clients.

Embrace the variety!

Given editors’ traditional place within the orbit of publishers, it can be tempting to see businesses and non-profits simply as ‘not publishers’ and lump them together accordingly. However, in reality they can be as diverse in the ways they handle their editorial needs as they are in their focuses and operations. The old adage ‘it depends’ plays out in work with businesses and non-profits, just as it does in all editorial work. As always, the key is to ask questions and check we understand our role.

About Hazel Bird

Hazel offers editorial services that empower non-profits, charities, businesses and authors to confidently share their expertise and impact. An editor since 2009, she aims to see the big picture while pinpointing every detail. She has been described as ‘superhuman’ and a ‘secret weapon’, but until Tony Stark comes calling she’s dedicating her superpowers to text-based endeavours.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credits: header image by Sean Pollock, diary by JESHOOTS.COM, man with laptop by Headway, all on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

A week in the life of a children’s fiction editor and proofreader

2 Replies

Becky Grace is a freelance children’s fiction editor and proofreader. In this post she describes her unconventional route into the industry and how an average week unfolds.

An unconventional background?

For 15 years I taught politics and sociology in a secondary school in Kent, until I decided it was time for a complete change of career. Considering my teaching specialisms it might have made sense to focus solely on editing and proofreading educational textbooks, but my time in schools – and my additional role as a literacy coordinator – had sparked a passion for children’s literature. With no formal background in publishing and editorial work, I set about retraining with the courses available through the CIEP and fiction-specific courses provided by other editors (Louise Harnby and Sophie Playle have some amazing courses in this area). At the same time I embarked on a masters in publishing.

Changing career and retraining in your forties is quite a daunting prospect but thankfully I wasn’t doing it alone. Quite coincidentally, my sister was going through her own career change and we found we were heading in the same direction. We set up a freelance editorial business with a focus on children’s fiction, and Inky Frog Editorial was born. Our specialisms complement each other perfectly: Jess works with picture books, early reader chapter books and middle grade novels; I focus on middle grade and young adult novels. It is a partnership that works well for us.

As someone completely new to the publishing industry, I honestly found the best thing to do was to throw myself into the CIEP and learn everything I could. I volunteered to coordinate my local CIEP group and have now joined the CIEP’s Learning and Professional Development Committee. From reading fact sheets and guides, to taking the courses and attending the conference (albeit virtually), I have immersed myself in the world of editing and proofreading.

Over the last few years of running the business, I’ve realised that there’s really no such thing as a ‘typical’ week, which is perhaps what I love most about my job. I’ve also discovered that I’m not as unconventional as I thought. Many of the editors and proofreaders I have spoken to have transitioned into this profession from a range of different careers. That’s the beauty of the colleagues I have worked with: everyone brings different experiences, specialisms and strengths to the work they do.

What’s different about proofreading and editing children’s fiction?

Unless you have children or grandchildren of a certain age, it might have been years since you last read a children’s book. Friends will often talk to me about the books they are reading with their child and these books normally fall into one of two categories:

Books the parent read as a child (Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton)
David Walliams

There are obviously exceptions to this rule – and for that we are grateful – but the average adult’s knowledge of today’s literature for children is rather limited. Children’s books today are so vast, diverse and exciting; we are living in a new ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. There is obviously a great deal to be learned from reading the ‘classics’ of our youth (Frances Hodgson Burnett, Philippa Pearce, Alan Garner, LM Montgomery, to name just a few) but the market for children’s books is so very different today, as are the children themselves. Knowing today’s children and the books that they read is vital for any writer of children’s fiction. The first and most important advice we give to anyone we work with is this: read.

At Inky Frog Editorial, Jess and I work with writers who are polishing their manuscript before sending it to agents (or reworking it if the first round of querying wasn’t successful), as well as writers who want to self-publish. Just as with adult fiction, when editing a children’s book we will look at theme, genre, plot, structure, pace, characterisation, dialogue, point of view and more. However, with children’s books, there are additional factors that writers need to be aware of. Does the writer understand the huge difference between books for toddlers, books for early readers, books for tweens, books for teens and books for young adults? This difference shows itself not just in age-appropriate language, but also in age-appropriate content. Do writers understand the mixed market for children’s books? Who are they targeting: the children, their parents, their teachers, school librarians? Is the writer aware of how children’s books have changed since they were a child?

A ‘typical’ week

The week starts with an email from a CIEP colleague who has found my name in the IM Available list (a brilliant resource). She has been contacted by a potential client who is looking for someone to provide a light-touch edit and proofread of their picture book, but the editor’s own calendar is fully booked. Now, picture books are most definitely out of my comfort zone. It would be incorrect to think that editing or proofreading a picture book is easy. Absolutely not. With a children’s picture book – especially one that is being self-published – there is a duty on the part of the author and editor to create a book that is age appropriate in terms of content, tone and language; there should be an understanding of the composition of the page, looking at the relationship and interaction between words and pictures and the use of space on the page. And don’t even get me started on picture books that rhyme! (Or are meant to rhyme.) But perhaps the hardest thing to master with a picture book is telling a full, rounded, engaging story in under a thousand words. With her masters in children’s publishing, Jess is perfect for a job like this. I make the introductions and hand the project over.

I then turn to a scheduling discussion with one of my regular clients, an author of fantasy adventure middle grade novels. The second book in the current series is due to be ready for a proofread in the next couple of weeks and I need to check that we are still on course for the dates I have put aside. If my workflow needs to be amended it will be helpful to know this in advance. This client is self-publishing rather than pursuing the traditional publishing route, and we have consulted with her previously on matters beyond editing and proofreading, such as writing a series, cover design, marketing and promotion, and more.

My next meeting of the week is an interesting one. A word-of-mouth recommendation from an existing client, this is a new writer who is part-way through a crime procedural novel. Crime procedural? I hear you ask. That’s not for children! Correct. This client is indeed writing for adults (although children definitely love a good murder mystery) and while we market Inky Frog Editorial specifically at writers of children’s fiction, I also work on adult fiction. The client isn’t hiring me for a full edit or proofread, she is instead looking for some advice and guidance on her story ideas. Her goal is to enter her work-in-progress to a crime fiction competition. We talk about plot, structure, pace, action, suspense, characterisation and how to write a synopsis. She has some fantastic ideas and I can see the beginnings of a great story.

Although not specifically in the realms of editing and proofreading, we also offer a book coaching service. One of my longest-standing clients is currently writing a historical dual narrative and our coaching session is the last appointment of the week.

The ‘extra’ jobs

My working week generally involves far more than working directly with clients. I deal with the usual admin jobs of quoting and invoicing, accounts, emails and blog writing. I am sourcing guest bloggers for my website, one of whom has written an outstanding piece on the subject of branding and design for authors. I am also launching a literary festival in my town with a team of book enthusiasts, and I spend much of my time in conversation with authors, publicists, sponsors and venue owners, taking on more of a project and event management role.

I am also a firm believer in continually improving my skills and staying up to date with developments in the world of children’s fiction. To this end I recently attended a writing workshop with award-winning children’s author Lucy Strange. While this course is targeted at beginning writers (of course I want to write a children’s book!) it is also invaluable CPD for a children’s book editor.

I regularly take on work outside the realms of fiction. With my background in education, I am happy to take on proofreading and copyediting work in the education sector, both on websites and in course materials. It’s important to know your limitations and when it is best to pass on work to a colleague, but it’s also important to have confidence in your past experience, your range of abilities and to recognise all of your strengths.

About Becky Grace

Becky Grace is a children’s fiction editor and proofreader, working on all genres and specialising in middle grade and YA fiction. Prior to training as an editor and proofreader, Becky was a teacher for 15 years, a career that ignited her passion for children’s fiction.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header image by Picsea, girl reading by Johnny McClung, girl choosing a book by Suad Kamardeen, all on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

A finer point: Redundant words and phrases

2 Replies

For August’s A finer point, Dan Beardshaw takes a closer look at redundancy in writing and how we can improve concision by dealing with superfluous wordage.

‘Redundancy’ in writing refers to using more words than necessary or repeating a meaning across multiple words. Spotting and removing redundancies is a regular editorial task that aims to improve concision. Concise writing is both easier to read and stylistically appealing, and a message can have more impact without the distraction of reading unnecessary words. In this post I will highlight some common redundancies and ways to fix them, as well as cases for recasting or leaving them.

In order to

The phrase in order to can often be replaced with to.

Copyeditors remove redundancies in order to make text more concise.

The longer version is commonly used and may be considered more formal, but using to instead doesn’t imply informality when used in a formal context, and there’s no clear distinction in meaning between the two forms. The to that in order to can substitute will always be part of a verb in the ‘infinitive of purpose’ form. This use of to means ‘for the purpose of’ just as in order to does.

How in order to is used can affect any decision to change it. For example, fronted to-infinitive clauses are correct but less common, and may read more naturally with in order to.

To make text more concise, copyeditors remove redundancies.

In order to make text more concise, copyeditors remove redundancies.

In the event that

The same sense can be expressed here by the simple conjunction if.

In the event that If the train is cancelled, a replacement bus will be provided.

This phrase may, like in order to, be considered more formal. But if isn’t necessarily informal here either. Some might consider the longer form more polite – in the above example, it could imply a sense that everything possible will be done to avoid the inconvenient outcome. But if a message of that kind is essential, it may be better recast and expressed directly instead of expecting readers to infer it from a wordy form of if.

Due to the fact that

Similar to the previous entry, due to the fact that inflates a conjunction – in this case because.

Redundancies are removed due to the fact that because they make the reader work harder.

Considering the frequency of a word like because, word count could grow considerably over the course of a manuscript with habitual use of the wordier version. And again, there isn’t a clear case for the simple conjunction being less formal.

While we’re on the subject of this redundancy niche, it’s worth mentioning another commonly inflated conjunction: despite the fact that can be replaced with although, as can its six-worded synonym in spite of the fact that.

The reason why

At first glance, this might appear to be an obvious redundancy, and why can usually be cut.

The collapse of the economy was the reason why they lost the election.

But the case for treating it as a redundancy is less clear. In a related post, Patricia T O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman argue that the why in this phrase is a conjunction comparable to for which:

In this expression, “why” is a conjunction and means “for which” or “on account of which,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

The noun “reason” in this usage means “cause” or “the thing that makes some fact intelligible,” Merriam-Webster’s says.

“Reason” in this sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is commonly used with “why,” “that,” “for,” or an infinitive. So all of these uses are correct:

(1) “The reason we left early …”

(2) “The reason why we left early …”

(3) “The reason that we left early …”

(4) “Our reason for leaving early …”

(5) “The reason to leave early …”

The authors’ case illustrates how this potential redundancy differs in form to most others – the ‘extra’ word why here adds an optional part of speech that isn’t strictly tautological and wouldn’t be considered extraneous in equivalent cases, such as that in option 3. The post also notes the longevity of the usage, dating back as far as 1484.

Free gift

Gifts are always free, so the free in free gift is clearly redundant. This is a common category of redundancy in which a word or phrase directly duplicates the meaning of another. This kind of tautology might be considered a more precise definition of redundancy.

Brief summary

Following the flawed logic of free gift, the adjective brief repeats a meaning already contained in the noun it describes. The same could be said of brief moment.

Personal opinion

The redundancy here is that the sense of ‘personal’ is already implied by the pronoun that opinion will usually be joined to when referring to an individual. My/Your/Her/His/Their opinion all tell us who the opinion belongs to, so personal adds nothing to the meaning. Distinction from shared opinions isn’t necessary, either, as that would be similarly indicated by, for example, the board’s opinion or simply consensus. A related redundancy here is consensus of opinion – of opinion can be discarded.

Absolutely essential

In this case, an adverb duplicates the meaning of the adjective it describes. An author may have intended to add emphasis, but essential is already an emphatic adjective with an unmodifiable meaning – absolutely essential makes no more sense than slightly essential.

In conclusion

Redundancies are commonplace across most genres of writing. Removing redundancies can enhance the style, clarity and readability of a text. But it’s worth determining any specific reason the author may have for using one and, if there is a good reason, considering the options of either recasting to avoid the unnecessary words or leaving as is.

Resources

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/09/reason-why.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/common-redundancies-in-english-1692776

https://forge.medium.com/close-proximity-end-result-and-more-redundant-words-to-delete-from-your-writing-3258be693a3d

Butterfield, J (ed.) (2015). Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 693.

About Dan Beardshaw

Dan Beardshaw is a development editor, copyeditor and proofreader, specialising in ELT and education publishing. He is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: rubbish bin by Cup of Couple; gift by Kim Stiver, both on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Bridging the gap: Translation editing of Chinese texts published in English

Leave a Reply

In this post, Magda Wojcik considers some of the challenges in editing text that has been translated from Chinese to English.

Translation editing has a dual function when preparing a text for publishing. It performs the function of conventional copyediting, to ensure the text is clear, consistent and correct. It also provides harmony between the message, style and tone of the translated and original versions of the text.

Achieving such unity between two languages from the same language group spoken on the same continent may be easier. However, translation editing becomes more complex when the original (source) and the target (translated) languages differ profoundly in how they express, for example:

grammatical gender systems
time dependence
directionality
physical attributes such as colours.

This blog post explores the process of translation editing a text written in putonghua, which is the standard modern Chinese of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), for publication in English. Putonghua is one of the localisations of Mandarin Chinese, alongside those spoken in Taiwan and Singapore. In this post, the term ‘Chinese’ is used to refer to putonghua. Regarding English, for the sake of simplicity, this post does not delve too much into its complexities and variations.

Chinese vs English: How do they differ?

In (a very simplified) summary, Chinese expresses spatial and physical attributes and time dependence (including tenses, grammatical gender systems and numbers) differently from Indo-European languages (of which English is one). And unlike a Latin-based alphabet, Chinese uses a logographic writing system. In other words, each character represents a specific word or concept that can function as a standalone word or component of a word.

So what does that mean in practice? Let’s have a look at some simple examples.

Directionality and time

In Chinese, time progresses vertically rather than horizontally. So instead of thinking about the past as being ‘behind’ us, it is ‘above’ us; instead of thinking about the future as being ‘in front’ of us, it is ‘below’ us. For example, the character xia conveys not only ‘down’ or ‘below’ but also ‘next’. Likewise, shang denotes ‘up’, ‘above’, and ‘previous’. This distinctive understanding of time in the Chinese language, and its connection to spatial orientation, may present challenges in translation editing.

Colours

Some words in the Chinese language have been transforming, potentially aligning more with the Indo-European speaker’s understanding. For instance, modern Chinese distinguishes between blue (lan) and green (lü). However, a word that predates them both – qing, signifying blue-green – is also still in use. This does not mean that blue and green (as distinct colours) do not occur in Chinese-speaking contexts but may be conveyed (and perceived) differently, not necessarily as distinct shades.

Numerals

Separating every three digits with a comma or a period is common in many Indo-European languages and enhances readability and comprehension. For instance, five hundred million (500,000,000) separates three clusters of three-digit groups. In contrast, Chinese divides numbers into groups of four. The character wan represents the value of ten thousand, and yi means a hundred million. So five hundred million is expressed by placing the number five (wu) in front of the hundred million (wu yi). While China uses the international numeric system with three-digit groupings and Arabic numerals, wan and yi remain prevalent and may influence how Chinese speakers convey numerical values.

What about translation editing?

These simple examples may demonstrate that language and how we think about and perceive the world may be intricately intertwined and mutually influence each other. Aside from communication, people use language to think. How the language is structured, with its syntax and specific logical rules, may affect how speakers of different languages perceive the world and convey their thoughts (Casasanto 2008). And this is when translation editing and its components of transcreation and language localisation come into play.

Localisation ensures that the target audience will understand the text’s terminology, cultural references and style carried over from the original text. Transcreation complements localisation and ensures that the translated text accurately conveys the message and tone of the source text.

These processes are critical in translation editing text from one distinct language to another. However, considering them is essential even for texts published in the same language spoken in different locations. For instance, Spanish speakers from Colombia and Spain may not resonate with the same references to a brand of sweets or a national newspaper in a text because these references are absent from their corresponding socio-cultural contexts. And so many other idiosyncrasies relevant to location and culture may need to be adapted in the localisation process to resonate with the target audience successfully.

Localisation: What to do with Chinese idioms in English?

An example of such idiosyncrasy is Chinese four-character idiomatic expressions (chengyu). These are the dominant form of Chinese idioms, comprising nearly 90% of those used today in speech and writing (Xu 2006). They reflect complex meanings drawn from literature and culture using four characters (or four syllables), which may take a paragraph to explain in English.

An example of such chengyu is ‘drawing legs on a snake’ (hua she tian zu; lit. ‘draw snake, add feet’). It signifies adding unnecessary or excessive elements to an already complete or perfect thing. When translated word for word, it may appear entirely obscure to a speaker unfamiliar with the context of Chinese philosophy and literature.

Hua she tian zu derives from one of the Zhuangzi stories, a collection of Daoist essays dating back to the fourth century BC. It describes a talented painter participating in a painting competition.

In the story, the first competitor to complete a snake drawing was to be the winner. The painter who finished first decided to add legs to his snake in an attempt to showcase his skills, technically making it into a lizard instead. Thus, he did not win because by making the addition, he missed the brief.

In this case, the translation editor could ensure effective localisation and transcreation by referring to an equivalent British English idiom familiar to the audience. For instance, it could be ‘gilding the lily’, which originates from Shakespeare’s play King John. Alternatively, the translation editor could ensure the text describes the concept to the reader on a more abstract level without referring to the snake, legs and painter.

Conclusion

Translation editing plays a vital role in bridging the gap between Chinese texts and their English translations. The complexities arising from differences in grammar, expressions and cultural nuances require careful consideration during the editing process. By understanding the intricacies of both languages and cultures, translation editors can bring Chinese texts to life in English while preserving their intrinsic meaning and engaging English-speaking readers.

The unique features of the Chinese language, such as spatial and temporal orientation, a logographic writing system, and numerical representation, pose specific challenges in translation editing. Language and thought are intricately intertwined, influencing how we perceive the world and convey our thoughts. Therefore, localisation and transcreation are essential components to ensure that the translated text accurately conveys the message and tone of the source text while catering to the target audience’s understanding and cultural context.

In this journey of translation editing, it is crucial to balance staying true to the original text with making it accessible to the target audience. And as we navigate the complexities, we must remember not to draw legs on a snake.

References

Xu, SH (2006). Proximity and complementation: Studies of the formation mechanism of idioms from cognitive point of view (II). Jinan daxue huawen xueyuan xuebao [Journal of College of Chinese Language and Culture of Jinan University], (3): 33–41.

Casasanto, D (2008). Space for thinking. In P Calvo and P Gomila (eds), Handbook of cognitive science: An embodied approach. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 641–52.

About Magda Wojcik

Magda Wojcik is an Intermediate Member of the CIEP who primarily works with non-fiction and academic authors. She is also a translation editor preparing texts translated from Chinese for publication in English. Before becoming an editor, Magda completed a PhD in Chinese literary history at SOAS, University of London.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: Chinese lanterns by Henry & Co; teacher in Chinese school by Yu Wei; both on Unsplash.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Editing fiction: Point of view

1 Reply

In this post, Rachel Rowlands looks at how fiction editors can help authors to use point of view consistently and in a way that works well for the story.

Point of view is a crucial element of fiction editing – and it’s something newer writers often struggle to get to grips with. As editors, it’s part of our job to be able to point out to an author when they’ve broken out of their chosen perspective, and to advise them on what will work best for the type of story they’re telling.

Point of view is the lens through which we view the story – whose eyes we experience the story’s events through. This could be a single main character or multiple characters. It’s a huge topic (there have been entire books written on the subject!), so after a quick crash course in the different types, I’ll list some of the main sticking points I’ve come across as a fiction editor, and how you can help authors deal with them too.

Point of view: The different types

First-person: this one is pretty straightforward! A character narrates the story using ‘I’ (‘I headed into the woods to search for him’, ‘I laughed’). The benefit here is that this can make the narrative feel much closer to the main character. It’s common in certain genres and age categories, such as young adult books.
Second-person: second-person point of view involves the use of ‘you’ (‘you walked across the street’, ‘you said’). This is quite an uncommon choice, and is best used carefully – some readers hate it with a passion! However, it can be a good way of making the reader feel more involved in the story.
Third-person limited: in third-person limited, we use pronouns such as ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’ (for example ‘she grabbed his hand’ and ‘they weren’t listening to her’). The clue to this one is in the name: we’re limited to one character’s perspective and are zoomed in on them. We experience one point of view. This can be per chapter, per scene or for the whole book, depending on the author’s choice.
Third-person omniscient: in this point of view, we again use pronouns such as ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’. But in omniscient, we are more zoomed out. The narrator is godlike, and knows everything about the story and characters, meaning we can enter anyone’s mind we like. The narrator can also know things the characters can’t. This point of view is more common in classic literature, and so is often seen as slightly old-fashioned now, but for some stories, it can work.

The sticking points

There are common problems that come up when it comes to point of view, and some of them can be trickier than others to communicate to authors.

Some point-of-view problems may mean you have to advise an author to completely scrap a perspective, or even rewrite their book in another perspective entirely.

Here are some of the most common point-of-view problems, and how you can help authors overcome them.

The chosen point of view doesn’t work for the book

Sometimes, the point of view just doesn’t work for the type of book the author is writing. A good example of this would be a middle-grade author writing for children, using the omniscient viewpoint, and diving into the perspective of all the adult characters.

This likely doesn’t work for a few reasons: omniscient has become a bit old-fashioned and outdated, particularly for children’s books (it was used, for example, in JM Barrie’s Peter Pan way back in 1904). It can also muddle the target audience. In a middle-grade book, we want to be focusing on the children’s point of view, not the adults’. In children’s books, the general rule of thumb is that children read about people their own age or slightly older. Having the point of view of characters over the age of 18 muddies the waters and pushes the book out of its intended age category.

The author is head-hopping

Head-hopping tends to occur when an author is writing in third-person limited, and is zoomed in on one character. Sometimes, the author slips up, and gives us the thoughts and feelings of a non-viewpoint character.

For example, let’s say the author is writing a chapter in third-person limited, following a character called Tom. The chapter is clearly zoomed in on Tom, and we get insight into his thoughts and feelings throughout:

Tom heaved a sigh. How was he supposed to get on with his week now, with his sister being so difficult? ‘I don’t want to talk about it right now,’ he told her.

The chapter is written this way, close to Tom, consistently. Then, suddenly, we get a sentence where we know what his sister, Michelle, is thinking:

Michelle crossed her arms. She’d expected this reaction but it still made her cheeks feel hot with fury.

This would be considered head-hopping – we’ve dipped into Michelle’s head to learn about what she’s thinking and feeling, but we need to be following Tom. In this case, the sentence could be cut down so only the first half remains, or rewritten so the second half focuses on Tom.

Some forms of head-hopping can be more subtle than this, so make sure you’re on the lookout for this kind of switch!

Using too many points of view

Sometimes an author wants to write from the point of view of lots of different characters, and so we get lots of scenes or chapters from the perspective of different people. Even the most skilled authors can find this difficult!

For new writers in particular, using lots of perspectives can occasionally cause issues: there may be so many point-of-view chapters or scenes that readers will struggle trying to keep up with them. It might be harder to give each character a unique voice, because the author has spread themselves too thin. And it may be difficult to develop a protagonist with a clear goal and well-defined personality, because the author is juggling too many storylines and points of view.

As an editor, if you think a manuscript is struggling with any of these issues, odds are a reader will think the same. The author in many of these cases might be better off scaling back on some of the perspectives so they can focus on what matters most to the story.

The author’s own voice intrudes on the narrative

This is a common issue when the author has chosen to use third-person limited, but occasionally slips into omniscient by having their own ‘author voice’ intrude on the narrative. This is a difficult thing to spot, because it requires having a good knowledge of the differences between third-person limited and omniscient, and having a honed eye for each! Here’s an example of how the author’s voice can intrude.

If the entire book has been clearly written in the point of view of a character called Cassandra, in third-person limited (so kept very close to Cassandra throughout), keeping this consistent is important. The author voice suddenly intruding may look something like this:

Cassandra twisted her hands, her cheeks burning. She had to do something to stop this. Little did Cassandra know that things were about to get much worse …

Here, the author’s own ‘godlike’ voice has intruded to give the reader a glimpse of the future. We’ve slipped into omniscient, and the author has spoken directly to the reader. As the book was written in third-person limited elsewhere, we’ve broken out of our intended point of view. An intruding author voice can be more obvious (like the movie-trailer-style example above), or more subtle, so getting a good handle on both perspectives can help you identify this issue.

The easiest way to practise identifying this type of slip is to read novels that use both types of third-person point of view, so you become familiar with how each of them works. Some examples of books written in third-person limited are The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon and The Giver by Lois Lowry. Third-person omniscient books are less common these days, but some popular examples are Dune by Frank Herbert and Peter Pan by JM Barrie.

Those are some of the common issues with point of view that I’ve come across while editing fiction, but there are more that you’ll no doubt encounter! There are lots of great resources out there that you can check out to learn more. Here is some recommended reading to brush up:

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Dave King and Renni Browne (chapter 3: Point of View)
Point of View by Sandra Gerth

About Rachel Rowlands

Rachel Rowlands is a fiction editor, author and Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP. She has a degree in English and creative writing and has worked on around 200 books for publishing houses (including HarperCollins, Hachette, Canelo and Penguin Random House), as well as for independent authors.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: faces by geralt on Pixabay; group of friends by William Fortunato on Pexels.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

A week in the life of a freelance commissioning editor

Leave a Reply

If you’ve ever wondered what a freelance commissioning editor gets up to, in this post Sarah Lustig has provided some answers!

I work as a freelance commissioning editor for several different educational publishers. Before starting my business, I worked in-house for a large educational publisher. I had a lot of experience as a project manager, but almost none as a commissioning editor.

Slowly, project management jobs morphed into commissioning (sometimes by way of nebulous ‘author management’). Before I knew it, I was overseeing large multi-component courses. Now it’s a core part of my services. My in-house experience was with international curricula and I still do a lot of work on them now, as well as occasional UK and vocational titles.

Before I go into what a typical week might look like, let’s clear up some confusions around the work of a commissioning editor.

How is it different from project management?

In many ways, it isn’t. The work of the commissioning editor is largely the same as that of the project manager, which is why my project management skills helped me segue so neatly into commissioning.

The key distinguishing feature of the commissioning editor’s work is that it centres on the early development of the content. A project manager (PM) may take over later. The handover to the PM often happens after any manuscript development has been completed and the materials are ready for copyediting. In that case, the freelance commissioning editor may stay on the project, but in a reduced role, or they may hand over to an in-house colleague.

In the same way that a designer maintains a key relationship with their illustrators, the commissioning editor takes ownership of the relationship with any authors. Throughout the project, they are the author’s first point of contact. In some cases, all author queries go through the commissioning editor and the rest of the team has little to no contact with them.

The commissioning editor also has overall responsibility for the project; team members (including the PM) will escalate issues to the commissioning editor, who makes a decision on how to address them. For that reason, freelance commissioning editors may work very closely with an in-house team member, such as a publisher. A freelancer can reasonably make decisions about text features or style, but they probably cannot make business-critical decisions, such as a decision to delay publication if there is an urgent issue with the content.

Back to a typical week: let’s assume I’m at the start of a new project. What would my week involve?

Commissioning authors

One key task of the commissioning editor is to commission the authors to write the content. The commissioning editor might choose them from contacts the publisher has supplied, from their own list of contacts or by sourcing someone new through sites such as LinkedIn.

At the start of a new project, I compose a standard email to send out to prospective authors. It will include:

Details of the project.
The schedule.
The remuneration being offered (if known at this stage).

Depending on how urgently we need to find someone, I might email several people simultaneously (and explain that in the email). Otherwise I approach one or two people and wait for their responses.

A typical week might include a phone call with a new author who has questions about the project. Some prefer to iron out any questions over email, but a phone call can be especially useful if you do go on to work together on the project.

Author briefing

While I am approaching potential authors and waiting for replies, I also start drafting the author briefing document. The publisher may have a template that they ask me to work from. If not, I have my own template that I adapt. The brief always includes:

A project overview and contents list for the proposed publication.
Any series features.
Special requirements.
Rights and permissions guidelines – the publisher usually supplies some standard wording; I add to that any artwork and/or photo budgets.
Workflow and contacts.

The author briefing can be an exciting part of the job. It’s often one of the most creative tasks. It’s at this stage that the vision for the product is laid out. Will you add any new features? How will you address a unique requirement from the subject specification, such as scientific practicals or field work?

This brief is a really important part of the project materials. It will be used by several other team members to get to grips with the expected content. It might also be used in briefing freelancers later down the line.

Another key task of the commissioning editor is to check that the material submitted by the author matches the brief. Some small variances are normal and can be resolved during development editing. But it’s more troubling if the author has not submitted a section or has not briefed any photos, in a brief that asks for 100 photos.

Liaising with reviewers and development editors

After the author has submitted their manuscript, it may go to reviewers or a development editor to check. Often, the commissioning editor will commission and brief any reviewers or development editors, in the same way they did with the authors. They will also liaise with them throughout their work.

Since the work of these freelancers is necessarily in-depth, there are likely to be content amendments to the text and author queries. In a normal week, I might receive some of these comments back from the freelancers. I go through them to see if there are any simple issues I can resolve myself in the manuscript – a question about the grammatical style used or a simple error found. I then send everything else back to the author to work on.

There may be some work to do between the author and the reviewer or development editor, to agree on the best solution to a problem. As commissioning editor, I have the ultimate decision-making responsibility in any disagreements. They don’t happen very often. Usually I can defer to the author.

Team meetings

Part of the commissioning editor’s role is to attend – and sometimes run – team meetings. These meetings could include a project kick-off and regular team update meetings. The commissioning editor usually runs the project kick-off. This is a time for them to brief the rest of the team on the project.

In most weeks, it’s likely that I will attend an update meeting with the team. Early in the project, when the manuscript is with me, I use the team meeting to tell others what the author has delivered and the progress of any editorial work, such as development editing.

Later, when the manuscript has passed to a project editor, the project editor or project manager will provide the team with updates. At that stage, my role in the meeting is mostly to answer any queries.

I might also be called on to make decisions when there is a problem. For example, the typesetter has been delayed and won’t return the proofs on the agreed date. Can we afford to delay the schedule? If we delay now, can we save time later on? Do we want to batch the content to keep it moving? A project manager will advise on all these points but often the commissioning editor will decide what course of action to take. A wise commissioning editor listens to the project manager’s suggestion.

The rewards and the challenges

I find commissioning work very rewarding. I’m there at the very beginning of the project, when the concept is still being scoped out. I then get to see the vision realised in the final product.

It can be very challenging, especially when there are problems and I need to try to provide solutions and answers. Sometimes the problem-solving itself is a good challenge; sometimes it isn’t. However, for me, the satisfaction of seeing something develop from nothing, until it’s a real product out in the world, outweighs the difficulties.

About Sarah Lustig

Sarah Lustig has been working in educational publishing since 2010. She has been freelance since 2014, providing educational publishers with proofreading, commissioning and project management services. She specialises in international curricula, as well as some non-fiction subjects. She is also the author of the middle-grade novel Mystery in the Palace of Westminster.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: office desk by Dose Media on Unsplash; phone call by Marcus Aurelius on Pexels; team meeting by Headway on Unsplash.

Posted by Sue McLoughlin, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Marketing and networking through Twitch

1 Reply

In this Q&A, Kat Betts talks about using the streaming platform Twitch to market her editing business and to network with writers and other editors. For the past five years, she’s live-streamed edits on Twitch.

What is Twitch?

Twitch.tv is a streaming platform used mostly, but not exclusively, by gamers to live-stream games as they are being played. Through using software such as OBS or Streamlabs you can share what’s on your screen to anyone watching online. You can also share a camera view of yourself, if that’s something you want. There is a wide community of writers and editors on the platform; accountability or coworking streams are a large part of Twitch.

What do you need to be a successful Twitch streamer?

To be able to stream, you don’t need much: a camera (if you choose to use one), a screen layout overlay (available through Streamlabs, create your own, or have someone design one!) and something to stream. This might be as little as a Pomodoro timer all on its own, or it might be your writing or an edit you’re working on.

To be a successful streamer takes time and effort. Not only do you need to be active in the community to cultivate a viewership (usually through having a strong streaming schedule), but you also need to advertise streams (on social media) as well as in various Discord groups. For me, diving into such depth is beyond my ability. I just don’t have the time, and while it doesn’t take long to put out a post on social media, my primary focus on those platforms is to share myself as an editor first and foremost, rather than a streamer. Still, being active in the community has me meeting writers worldwide, and other streamers through them and their viewers. It’s a web of friends that I spend time with daily, whether or not I’m streaming.

Why did you start streaming on Twitch?

Way back when I started (2018), I wanted to add to my income and add to my pool of potential leads. I thought streaming on Twitch would be a good way to do this. I do not get paid much through subscriptions (where viewers can pay to have no ads while watching my channel), bits (tips) or ad revenue. Being present and active in the Twitch writing and editing community has led to new, long-lasting client relationships though. That said, the value in it is the company. Most of us work from home. Alone. And some days this is lovely. For me, though, I get lonely quickly, and being able to chat with friends I’ve made across the world is a great social outlet. Plus, if you get your social bar filled, all you have to do is hit that little browser X. 😉

Do you ever get nervous or make mistakes?

In the beginning, I would get nervous all the time. I knew the people, I loved the community, but having your face up there, and people watching your every digital move? Sounds like a disaster! But the community are wonderful. They are supportive.

What still makes me nervous these days is when the author of the work I am editing onscreen comes into the stream. In almost every case, my nerves are unfounded. The clients are excited to see the edit, they’re excited to get to know me more, and I them! They love when you’re umming and ahhing over the same pesky comma they were. Take it out? Leave it in? Clients being in the chat and viewing the stream is not a bad thing, either; they can often clear up queries on the fly, rather than you having to wait until they return an email or Discord message.

It’s important to understand that Twitch is a live environment, and viewers aren’t looking for perfection. Anything too cultivated screams promotional content only. In my experience, this just doesn’t work within the writing and editing community on Twitch. Most viewers are there to create a bond, to make a friend, and this is a great way to develop relationships that turn into leads.

Do you get many questions while streaming?

Absolutely, and I love being able to share what I do. It’s important to me to show authors that editors are there to support them, to be their partner in the process, to make their work shine.

Regarding editing, there are three common questions I get asked repeatedly:

What’s your website? A link to my website shows up periodically using an automated chatbot system I have set up, but I’m always happy to share it!
What are your rates? I redirect to my website, with an explanation that the rates listed are just a guide, and that manuscripts are assessed individually.
Will you look at my story for me? There are, of course, many people in the community who want work done for free, and there are writers and editors on Twitch who do give feedback (usually developmental advice). This is not something I do (I like to think of myself as a coin-operated editor), and I have lost only a few potential viewers as a result.

How do you decide which manuscripts to edit live?

Whether to edit a manuscript live first comes down to what the author decides. I include in my contracts multiple versions of the confidentiality clause, which allow the client to choose what depth of clause they’d like. Twitch streaming is one of these options, and every client is walked through what Twitch is and how it works before they decide. If an author chooses Twitch streaming, the decision of when and how long to stream for is made at my discretion. Some days I might choose not to stream the manuscript; it all depends on what I am doing at the time, and whether the manuscript lends itself well to streaming.

Works are never streamed in their entirety, and at no point are any recordings or clips made. If an author wishes to rescind streaming permissions for their work, it is made clear that this is always an option; it is their work, and when it comes to confidentiality (among so much more!), it’s entirely their choice. Most authors I work with (about 9 out of 10) choose to have their edit streamed, and while I’ve never had a client pull their manuscript permissions, it is important that they know this is always an option.

Where can you be found?

I’m always happy to answer questions about streaming. If you’re curious, stop by twitch.tv/elementeds, hit the follow button and turn on notifications. I don’t have a stream schedule (though I do recommend it if you can stick to one), but the notification option will send you an email letting you know I’ve gone live. Come hang out and let’s make some work progress together!

About Kat Betts

Kat Betts has been an editor for just over 12 years and maintains that it is, in fact, an addiction. She generalises in speculative fiction, specialising in fantasy and science fiction. Kat spends most of her time editing or wrangling her three young boys, and when she gets spare time, she writes portal fantasies, plays World of Warcraft or sculpts cute little dragons from polymer clay. You can find her at elementeds.com and on most social media platforms as @elementeds.

About the CIEP

Photo credits: header image by ilgmyzin on Unsplash.

Posted by Belinda Hodder, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Editing fiction: Romance

1 Reply

In this post, Maya Berger looks at how fiction editors can help authors to create romantic relationships that feel true to the rest of the story.

Content warning: general mention of non-consensual relationships and dynamics in fiction (no specific examples).

Characters in a work of fiction are complex creatures. They have personalities, back stories, motivations, physical appearances, schedules and interpersonal relationships – and a line editor needs to make sure that all these details are consistent, realistic within the fictional universe and engaging for the reader throughout the story. Add a romance into the mix, and now the editor also has to consider things like characters’ attitudes towards dating, sex and gender roles in relationships; whether the character becomes unrecognisable once they’re in love; and representations of consent.

This post will look at some of the major character considerations for editors to keep in mind when line editing romance and intimacy in fiction. It offers tips on ensuring that a story’s romantic elements preserve character consistency, framing and inclusivity, and handling consent issues sensitively.

Meet the lovebirds

When we’re line editing fiction in general, we look for well-developed, consistent characters with clear motivations, relatable thoughts and actions, and realistic and satisfying character arcs. And we can apply the same criteria to romantic character arcs and intimate dynamics.

What does the story say about the characters in a couple (or throuple, or other polyamorous configuration, as the case may be)? If your author has supplied character sketches, you’ve got a head start on this; otherwise, as you edit, note details like:

what qualities they value in their loved ones
how they react to stress
how highly they prioritise their career
how they like to spend their free time

and ask yourself whether the characters show these traits in their romantic interactions.

Then, look at what the romance contributes to the reader’s engagement with the characters. Does a romantic dynamic add to character development and reveal hidden truths about a character? Does a character’s crush motivate them to perform the actions that drive the plot forward, or does a character’s behaviour within a romantic relationship reveal an ulterior motive of theirs? If the answer to all these questions is ‘no’, or if the romantic dynamics feel out of place or tacked on just to give a character something to do, query this with the author.

There are often little additions you can suggest to turn an isolated intimate moment into a scene that adds depth to the story. For example:

Before: ‘She kissed Ilana, losing herself in the sensations.’

After: ‘She kissed Ilana, losing herself in pleasurable sensations for the first time since the war began.’

Before: ‘If the heart-stoppingly beautiful barista was working today, he would finally ask them out.’

After: ‘If the heart-stoppingly beautiful barista was working today, he would finally ask them out – he was determined that his infernal stutter would not get in the way this time.’

Editing romance for character consistency

Be on the lookout for unexplained inconsistencies between how a character acts, speaks and thinks in romantic and non-romantic scenes. If you find any, ask the author about them.

Here’s an example of a query with suggestions for addressing such a character inconsistency:

Character A’s flirting is playful, but in all his interactions with his friends and siblings he is intense and pretentious, and readers may find the difference jarring. If there is something about Character B that brings out Character A’s hidden playful side, please make this clearer in the text.

I’d also suggest having Character A notice the difference in himself and react to it: is he ashamed to be letting his guard down around Character B, for example, or does it make him appreciate Character B all the more? Alternatively, you could add some light-heartedness to Character A’s other relationships or make him more intense with his lover so that he’s still recognisable in every scene.

With this query, I’ve prompted the author to consider how they intended to portray Character A in the context of their romantic and other relationships, and I’ve given them some corresponding options for improving the text.

Editing romance for consent orientation

The Pervocracy states that, ‘A consent culture is one in which the prevailing narrative of sex – in fact, of human interaction – is centred around mutual consent.’

When examining the romantic dynamics in a story, try to establish the story’s consent orientation – its underlying attitudes and assumptions about the seeking and granting of consent. For example, the author may have written dialogue with a joke about following someone home that they intended as flirty banter but that comes across like a lyric from ‘Every Breath You Take’. In a case like this, you can suggest having the character sheepishly realise what they’ve implied and apologise for being creepy, framing the character as a villain and having other characters react negatively to the joke, or replace the joke with a different funny line that doesn’t rely on making someone feel unsafe for its punchline.

The vocabulary and tone play a big part in setting a story’s consent orientation: for example, is the author trying to create an atmosphere that is inappropriately erotic when a character is showing reluctance or distress? And ask yourself which characters are portrayed sympathetically. The answers to these questions will help you determine the story’s position on consent and whether the author is being exploitative, not just in terms of the romantic elements of the story but with all the story’s interpersonal relationships.

As an editor, you may encounter scenes of non-consensual or traumatic relationships and acts, particularly in crime fiction, horror and historical fiction. Sometimes these scenes will be integral to a character’s story or establishing historical accuracy and realism, but you can always choose not to take on a project with these elements or step away from a project that you’re uneasy about.

When editing a story with non-consensual elements, I suggest advising the author to add a content-warning disclaimer in the front matter of the story to help readers know what to expect, if it’s not already clear from the cover, the blurb or the genre and marketing of the book.

Even though the inclusion of a non-consensual scenario might be necessary in a story, that doesn’t give an author carte blanche to glorify coercion or violence in an intimate relationship, and an editor can suggest rewording or reframing a character or scene to avoid glamourising these things the same way that we might for murder, fraud or any other crime. This brings us on to …

Editing romance for character framing

As well as the non-consensual dynamics mentioned above, even within the realm of consensual relationships there is potential for misogyny, jokes in poor taste, gender essentialism and other content that can alienate readers. Again, note the characters’ reactions to each other and to what is happening, as well as how the narrator treats the characters. Do the sympathetic characters’ actions and dialogue support the framing of them as swoon-worthy?

For example, if Character D describes Character C as ‘the woman of my dreams’, but this ‘dream woman’ constantly insults and belittles Character D in front of their friends, do the narration and the other characters also see Character C positively? If they do, you can raise a query with the author, along the lines of:

Character C insulted Character D in front of their friends seven times in the previous two chapters. This doesn’t seem consistent with the description of her as ‘the woman of my dreams’, with how well liked she is within their friend group, or with the narration’s framing of her as a sympathetic character.

To avoid putting off readers, consider having fewer instances of Character C insulting her partner and/or having Character C apologise and make good-faith efforts to change. Alternatively, you can reframe Character C’s actions by giving them consequences within the story, such as having Character D or their friends call out Character C and telling her that her behaviour is unacceptable.

Editing romance for inclusivity

The traditional male romantic leads in Western fiction (tall, white, non-disabled, young, cisgender men who were sexually attracted to women) and their female counterparts (cisgender, young, non-disabled, white, and seeking a monogamous romantic and sexual relationship with a man) leave a lot of readers unrepresented.

Thankfully, as many fiction genres have become more diverse, so have the romances within them. And as editors, we can encourage authors to include positive representation in their stories by moving beyond stereotypes or subverting them.

When characters with romantic storylines are from racialised or sexual-minority backgrounds, or when they are older characters or characters with impairments, illnesses or neurodivergence, challenge any negative stereotyping around things like:

their capacity to feel and express desire
their attitudes towards casual sex, having and raising children, and LGBTQIA+ relationships
the gender roles they occupy.

Conclusion

Get to know the characters with romantic storylines, and note whether they show the same traits in their romantic interactions and in the rest of the story.
Establish the story’s consent orientation and pay attention to how the dialogue, tone and character framing reinforce it.
Encourage positive representation of diverse romances and challenge negative stereotyping.